Roma 12:1-2

Consecration of the Believer’s Life

12:1 Therefore I exhort you, brothers and sisters, ¹  by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a sacrifice – alive, holy, and pleasing to God ²  – which is your reasonable service. 12:2 Do not be conformed ³  to this present world, ⁴  but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve ⁵  what is the will of God – what is good and well-pleasing and perfect.

Yesaya 66:19-20

66:19 I will perform a mighty act among them ⁶  and then send some of those who remain to the nations – to Tarshish, Pul, ⁷  Lud ⁸  (known for its archers ⁹ ), Tubal, Javan, ¹⁰  and to the distant coastlands ¹¹  that have not heard about me or seen my splendor. They will tell the nations of my splendor. 66:20 They will bring back all your countrymen ¹²  from all the nations as an offering to the Lord. They will bring them ¹³  on horses, in chariots, in wagons, on mules, and on camels ¹⁴  to my holy hill Jerusalem,” says the Lord, “just as the Israelites bring offerings to the Lord’s temple in ritually pure containers.

Yesaya 66:2

66:2 My hand made them; ¹⁵ 

that is how they came to be,” ¹⁶  says the Lord.

I show special favor ¹⁷  to the humble and contrite,

who respect what I have to say. ¹⁸ 

Kolose 1:5

1:5 Your faith and love have arisen ¹⁹  from the hope laid up ²⁰  for you in heaven, which you have heard about in the message of truth, the gospel ²¹ 

Filipi 2:17

2:17 But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice together with all of you.

Filipi 4:18

4:18 For I have received everything, and I have plenty. I have all I need because I received from Epaphroditus what you sent – a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, very pleasing to God.

Ibrani 13:16

13:16 And do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, ²²  for God is pleased with such sacrifices.

Ibrani 13:1

Final Exhortations

13:1 Brotherly love must continue.

Pengkhotbah 2:5

2:5 I designed ²³  royal gardens ²⁴  and parks ²⁵  for myself,

and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.

[12:1]  ¹ tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:13.

[12:1]  ² tn The participle and two adjectives “alive, holy, and pleasing to God” are taken as predicates in relation to “sacrifice,” making the exhortation more emphatic. See ExSyn 618-19.

[12:1]  sn Taken as predicate adjectives, the terms alive, holy, and pleasing are showing how unusual is the sacrifice that believers can now offer, for OT sacrifices were dead. As has often been quipped about this text, “The problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar.”

[12:2]  ³ tn Although συσχηματίζεσθε (suschmatizesqe) could be either a passive or middle, the passive is more likely since it would otherwise have to be a direct middle (“conform yourselves”) and, as such, would be quite rare for NT Greek. It is very telling that being “conformed” to the present world is viewed as a passive notion, for it may suggest that it happens, in part, subconsciously. At the same time, the passive could well be a “permissive passive,” suggesting that there may be some consciousness of the conformity taking place. Most likely, it is a combination of both.

[12:2]  ⁴ tn Grk “to this age.”

[12:2]  ⁵ sn The verb translated test and approve (δοκιμάζω, dokimazw) carries the sense of “test with a positive outcome,” “test so as to approve.”

[66:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “and I will set a sign among them.” The precise meaning of this statement is unclear. Elsewhere “to set a sign” means “perform a mighty act” (Ps 78:43; Jer 32:20), “make [someone] an object lesson” (Ezek 14:8), and “erect a [literal] standard” (Ps 74:4).

[66:19]  ⁷ tn Some prefer to read “Put” (i.e., Libya).

[66:19]  ⁸ sn That is, Lydia (in Asia Minor).

[66:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “drawers of the bow” (KJV and ASV both similar).

[66:19]  ¹⁰ sn Javan is generally identified today as Greece (so NIV, NCV, NLT).

[66:19]  ¹¹ tn Or “islands” (NIV).

[66:20]  ¹² tn Heb “brothers” (so NIV); NCV “fellow Israelites.”

[66:20]  ¹³ tn The words “they will bring them” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[66:20]  ¹⁴ tn The precise meaning of this word is uncertain. Some suggest it refers to “chariots.” See HALOT 498 s.v. *כִּרְכָּרָה.

[66:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “all these.” The phrase refers to the heavens and earth, mentioned in the previous verse.

[66:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and all these were.” Some prefer to emend וַיִּהְיוּ (vayyihyu, “and they were”) to וְלִי הָיוּ (vÿli hayu, “and to me they were”), i.e., “and they belong to me.”

[66:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and to this one I look” (KJV and NASB both similar).

[66:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “to the humble and the lowly in spirit and the one who trembles at my words.”

[1:5]  ¹⁹ tn Col 1:3-8 form one long sentence in the Greek text and have been divided at the end of v. 4 and v. 6 and within v. 6 for clarity, in keeping with the tendency in contemporary English toward shorter sentences. Thus the phrase “Your faith and love have arisen from the hope” is literally “because of the hope.” The perfect tense “have arisen” was chosen in the English to reflect the fact that the recipients of the letter had acquired this hope at conversion in the past, but that it still remains and motivates them to trust in Christ and to love one another.

[1:5]  ²⁰ tn BDAG 113 s.v. ἀπόκειμαι 2 renders ἀποκειμένην (apokeimenhn) with the expression “reserved” in this verse.

[1:5]  ²¹ tn The term “the gospel” (τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, tou euangeliou) is in apposition to “the word of truth” (τῷ λόγῳ τῆς ἀληθείας, tw logw th" alhqeia") as indicated in the translation.

[13:16]  ²² tn Grk “neglect doing good and fellowship.”

[2:5]  ²³ tn Heb “made.”

[2:5]  ²⁴ tn The term does not refer here to vegetable gardens, but to orchards (cf. the next line). In the same way the so-called “garden” of Eden was actually an orchard filled with fruit trees. See Gen 2:8-9.

[2:5]  ²⁵ tn The noun פַּרְדֵּס (pardes, “garden, parkland, forest”) is a foreign loanword that occurs only 3 times in biblical Hebrew (Song 4:13; Eccl 2:5; Neh 2:8). The original Old Persian term pairidaeza designated the enclosed parks and pleasure-grounds that were the exclusive domain of the Persian kings and nobility (HALOT 963 s.v. פַּרְדֵּס; LSJ 1308 s.v παράδεισος). The related Babylonian term pardesu “marvelous garden” referred to the enclosed parks of the kings (AHw 2:833 and 3:1582). The term passed into Greek as παράδεισος (paradeisos, “enclosed park, pleasure-ground”), referring to the enclosed parks and gardens of the Persian kings (LSJ 1308). The Greek term has been transliterated into English as “paradise.”